When did mothers become the fourth emergency service?

I find I have to revise all received healthcare wisdom on a rolling basis

How to describe the unexpected demands of motherhood, that relentless need to stay on top of everything – times tables and friendship groups and eating habits..?

I am simultaneously the Oracle at Delphi, the highest court in the land and the source of all knowledge. Apparently, I alone know exactly what my family are to do in a medical emergency (no pressure there, then), and I am always on hand in a crisis.

Or, if I’m not, I will be phoned and texted in SHOUTY capitals until I make an appearance, lickety-split.

“Can’t your father deal with it?” I implore, sopping wet from my interrupted bath.

“No!” comes the roar of outrage. “He’s only Daddy.” I’m reminded of the film Broadcast

News. It was released in 1987, and you know what they say about the Eighties: if you don’t remember them, you’re obviously one of those irritatingly fresh-faced millennials in a retro “Breakfast Club” T-shirt.

Anyway, in the movie, someone sarcastically says to Holly Hunter, the highly driven, wholly capable, nervesstretched-tighter-than-a-cheesewire news producer: “It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you’re the smartest person in the room.”

“No,” she responds, tearfully, “it’s awful.”

That pretty much sums up maternal responsibility, especially when it comes to matters medical.

I know to my family I am a naturalborn bossy-boots with an answer for everything but, honestly, during my halcyon Dubonnet-and-lemonade years – when supper was half a tube of Pringles, and lying-in an unassailable human right – I never expected to become custodian of everyone’s health (and, as it transpires, wealth and happiness, too).

But, with a seven-year-old and a 14year-old in tow, plus myself and my husband to keep alive so we can keep them alive, I find myself having to reassess and revise all received healthcare wisdom on a rolling basis.

This week, it’s painkillers that can lead to cardiac arrest, the pros and cons of letting your daughter take the Pill, fluoride in tap water, and the weird but welcome news that greasy skin and teenage acne can lead to more supple, line-free skin in later life – a bright spot (sic…) on the horizon, but not the easiest of sells to any selfconscious teenager wailing at the bathroom mirror.

I’ve also learned that an apple a day cuts the chance of five types of cancer, while a Mediterranean diet could save 20,000 lives a year.

But I must now also worry about ibuprofen, my go-to pain relief, which reports suggest can trigger heart failure, raising the risk of developing the condition by a fifth.

So that’s my bathroom supply of blisterpacks consigned to the clinical waste bin (the one between the dry recycling and the food-waste caddy).

After decades of debate, I’ve still not got to grips with what I think about fluoride – which, I learn, is still being added to school milk in Blackburn (does it make it taste of toothpaste?). But on the issue of the Pill, my views are not budging.

I know girls of 14 who have been put on it, not just to reduce extreme period pain but to cure severe acne, because all other antibiotics had been tried, apart from the most powerful, roaccutane. Roaccutane is highly effective, but has been linked to admittedly rare but cataclysmic sideeffects, including low mood and suicide.

New figures from the UK drugs regulator the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency have shown that, from mid2012 to mid-2014, 20 people took their own lives on roaccutane. Although a bit drastic, should my daughter ever need to take something, the Pill always seemed to my mind like a safer option.

Until yesterday, that is, when University of Copenhagen research involving a million women revealed that those taking the most popular brand of Pill were 23 per cent more likely to be put on anti-depressants in later life than non-users.

The figure for teenagers between 15 and 19 who took a combined oral contraceptive for birth control and went on to be prescribed an anti-depressant was 80 per cent. That is terrifying.

Right, I say – stop the Pill, keep the acne. That will obviate the need for birth control. Is anyone listening? Experts have said the findings raise “important questions”, but are urging women not to be alarmed. Women, maybe, but mothers?

As soon as we’re out of the labour room, we’re on flashing blue-light alert. Hypervigilance is part of our job description (which, incidentally, nobody gave us in advance).

I mean, if we didn’t scan the media daily for health alerts and fire off Nutribullets of green juice every morning, we’d all be dead, wouldn’t we? Well, perhaps not dead, per se. Maybe just poorly.

Or maybe, as my husband claims, we’d all be fine. But as I am the fourth emergency service, I for one am not willing to take that chance.

Yes, it’s awful, but somebody needs to always know what’s best.